Lousiana Gov. Bobby Jindal gave a speech yesterday outlining his version of what the GOP needs to do differently in order to be less like the GOP. Startlingly, there is a way to make fun of it.

His prescription: Education! We need to fix education! Which sounds like a great idea, until you take into account that the guy saying it took a prolific, probably unconstitutional dump on his state’s education system, and that members of the party he is saying it to have come out vigorously against evolution, teachers’ bargaining rights, embryology, knowledge-based college admission guidelines, the age of the Earth, student loan programs, and the entire skill of critical thinking. It’s like proposing salad reform be embraced by velociraptors: It might help the raptors look better, but they just aren’t built for it.

The story of Jindal’s speech is brought to us by the charming folks of the Daily Caller:

“I believe we’ve got an economic and a moral imperative to provide school choice and a quality education to every child, every student in America. In that case, many lives will be transformed, many futures will be realized, and the results for all our country will be real and lasting.”

Well, that’s nice. There are more hollow, nonspecific platitudes, mixed in with how important the middle class is, which he says as his party gleefully steps on it.

Jindal, for his part, has been paving the way for education reform in his state, where education has been reformed to the point it does not even really look like education anymore. From Reuters:

Louisiana is embarking on the nation’s boldest experiment in privatizing public education, with the state preparing to shift tens of millions in tax dollars out of the public schools to pay private industry, businesses owners and church pastors to educate children…

Top schools…have just a handful of slots open [to students with vouchers]. The Dunham School in Baton Rouge, for instance, has said it will accept just four voucher students, all kindergartners. The school willing to accept the most voucher students — 314 — is New Living Word in Ruston, which has… no library. Students spend most of the day watching TVs in bare-bones classrooms. Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.

Other Louisiana “schools,” as we have told you before, are teaching students not only that the Loch Ness Monster is real, but that it disproves evolution. Aaaand, not only has Jindal gifted the state’s education system to religion, but he has gifted it only to his (new) religion: Christian “schools” had no problem getting certified to get that sweet taxpayer funding, but when Muslim schools tried to join the voucher program, politicians done soiled their Jesus britches.

Education reform, however, fits with the new “fix the GOP” narrative that has developed since the American electorate reminded the GOP it was broken: Take the issues making the party look out of touch and ignorant, pretend to fix them, and hope nobody notices nothing’s changed.

Shorter Jindal: Science needs to be taught in our schools to protect our kids against idiots like me!

Esteev

And by "science" we mean "science-fiction".

corthylio

Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!

FNMA

We don't need no education.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

How can ye have any puddin' ef ye don't beat yer meat?

gullywompr

You can't.

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

STAND STILL LADDIE!

Esteev

Isn't that what the GOP is saying?

http://www.southsidejohnny.com/ Jukesgrrl

If kids is all in skool whos gonna break up them chifforobes huh?!?

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30500320@N06/ DerrickWildcat

FACT: He is from India.

JustPixelz

His parents are. He was born in USA. OR WAS HE?!?! Let's review the GO-Pee citizen test:

skin = not white

That proves he ain't 'Merican enough to be POTUS. Stop this before it starts Orly.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/30500320@N06/ DerrickWildcat

oh.
FACT: His Parents are from India!

eggsacklywright

And he was raised on polyunsaturated ghee.

Beowoof

He is the proverbial anchor baby. I understand his Mom was five months pregnant when she arrived. I am surprised the republicans haven't tried to send him back home.

FraAnima

Where is his long form birthee certificate, hngh?!

http://theplannersdreamgonewrong.blogspot.com jtinks

He's actually a sleeper agent working to destroy the American education system so that his fatherland will have an advantage in the 21st-century (where India is firmly located, Louisiana, not so much).

hagajim

"In that case, many lives will be transformed…"

If Bobby and his drooling brethren have their way indeed many lives will be transformed, and none of them for the better. The Koch's need drooling idiots who they can pay shit wages to in order to line their pockets even better. And that, seems to be the sole goal of the GOP.

mormos

Sadly i dont think that is far from the truth. I weep for these children.

Pat_Pending

I will be good I will be good I will be good I will be good I will be good I will be good I will be god I will be god I will be… GOD I will be… GOD I will be… GOD I AM GOD I AM GOD I AM GOD I. AM. GOD. TIME FOR SMITING."

sullivanst

“I believe we’ve got an economic and a moral imperative to provide school choice and a quality education to every child, every student in America. In that case, many lives will be transformed, many futures will be realized, and the results for all our country will be real and lasting.”

Well all of this is probably true, because nowhere does he say his proposal would actually improve anything. Many lives would be transformed for the worse, many sucky futures would be realized and the results for all our country would be long lasting, real malaise.

SigDeFlyinMonky

Well, the governor's ideas are… pure.

http://www.southsidejohnny.com/ Jukesgrrl

The key phrase being "school choice." Which means go ahead and destroy public education, you God-fearing white people are covered.

sullivanst

Nessie lessons for all!

Yeah, I knew exactly what he meant by "school choice": "We choose to leave poorz and particularly black kids behind"

http://lostintarnation.blogspot.com/ SayItWithWookies

Well Jindal has a point — Americans just aren't stupid enough yet to vote for the GOP.

I don't think the American people are getting smarter, but the Republican core has definitely given ignorance a big, sloppy wet kiss over the past few election cycles, and anyone who doesn't follow them down the fundy-creationist-misogynist-imperialist-science-denial primrose path faces expulsion as a RINO.

I remember when affable lunkhead Dick Lugar — who notably could find most of the world's countries on a map — used to be the Old Guard and one of the serious policy guys. Now who do they have in terms of foreign relations? Condi?

Your point is valid — but the level of rubeness that allowed Dubya to get elected is just too worldly for the current GOP, and they're determined to find a base in the intellectual rubble that remains rather than rebuilding themselves.

ProgressiveInga

"Students spend most of the day watching TVs in bare-bones classrooms."

I believe the Oompa-Loompas said it best:
What do you get when you watch TV?
A kink in your neck and an IQ of three.

Keep it competitive, LA

FraAnima

"Special Ed" classrooms are a hemispherical cage ringed with steel spikes. No television, except for the one in the skybox for the corporate sponsors.

2 go in, one comes out.

ChrisM2011

But they can Deskercise!

Blueb4sinrise

Hollow Platitudes/Out of Touch and Ignorant 2116!!!!

noodlesalad

The Daily Caller continued "how are we losing to Singapore? That's not even a real place, right? It's like Constantinople or Timbuktu. Wait, what?"

http://rightthinkingamerican.blogspot.com johnnyzhivago

All this high falutin' science and 'rithmatic ain't gonna help our kids dig ditches any faster.

BadKitty904

"You want fries with that?"

PubOption

Our kids! That's a Messican job.

Goonemeritus

If you love what the GOP did for the Economy and Foreign Policy why wouldn’t you give them a shot reforming education.

noodlesalad

Look, 47% of the class is going to be below average, right? That's just statistics. So fuck those kids. We don't even need to worry about them. They aren't going to take responsibility for those grades.

Esteev

Centrist Libel!!

http://www.southsidejohnny.com/ Jukesgrrl

To be fair, the GOP's economic and foreign policy HAS thinned out the number of children we have to educate.

BadKitty904

Having destroyed what was left of Louisiana's education system, Goober-ji now wants to destroy what's left of the rest of the nation's schools? Good "thinking".

DCBloom

"Goober-ji " Oh I am SO stealing that!

BadKitty904

*purrs*

finallyhappy

so when you are writing the stuff here- are you perhaps a world renowned comedy writer?

Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.

For the Physics final, I have a suggestion:

"And the LORD spake, saying, "First shalt thou take out the Holy Pin, then shalt thou count to three, no more, no less. Three shall be the number thou shalt count, and the number of the counting shall be three. Four shalt thou not count, neither count thou two, excepting that thou then proceed to three. Five is right out. Once the number three, being the third number, be reached, then lobbest thou thy Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch towards thy foe, who being naughty in My sight, shall snuff it."

DahBoner

Ay ladies, the Lochness monster is real.

//zip…

http://simplyleftbehind.blogspot.com/ actor212

Won't it eat that little worm when it shows up?

finallyhappy

I hung around the loch looking for it but that was when I still drank- a lot.

http://www.southsidejohnny.com/ Jukesgrrl

Those kids might have been taught to believe in the Loch Ness monster, but I'll bet they still don't know where Loch Ness is, or how to spell it.

FeloniousMonk

Kilts don't have zips. You, sir, are no true Scotsman.

DahBoner

"I dunt know where ya been lad, but it looks like ya won first prize"

Steverino247

Obviously, this is an attempt to rid LA of the cruel influence of teacher's unions. The politicians don't care who gets the public's money, so long as teacher's unions won't be able to fund their opponents' campaigns. R's do best where education does least.

sullivanst

Also, enrich the owners of private schools. Say, do you suspect they give more heavily to the GOP?

SorosBot

Plus they get to fuck over the already-underpaid teachers; fucking over workers, even professional ones, is always a big goal of the Republicans.

http://wonkette.com ManchuCandidate

Ah the dichotomy of the GOPer. Loves the teknalagy and knawlidge that larning provides but not the shit that's agan that bible or leads to soshalizm or the aktual larning.

sullivanst

Does not love the knawlidge that persuades people to vote Democratic, however.

Ruhe

Soon to be known as the "Great Southern Concavity", the unified third world economies of Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana will provide American manufacturers the opportunity to develop their own state-side maquiladora zone. Why should those Chinese commie factory owners be getting all the dough anyway?

Apple's Chinese slave-drivers are gearing up to set up operations over here. However, Tim Cook claims the main thing driving Apple outsourcing is the goddamned stupidity of the American workforce:

Cook told NBC that the main reason Apple outsourced much of its manufacturing was "not so much about price — it's about the skills."

"Over time, there are skills that are associated with manufacturing that have left the U.S.," Cook said in an interview on NBC's "Rock Center With Brian Williams," which aired Thursday night. "Not necessarily people, but the education system stopped producing them."

It was on special when Poppy bought him the Yale degree. He just had to show his Skull & Bones membership card.

Botlrokit

Every day is Sunday School!

http://twitter.com/iburl iburl

Sorry, I normally don't take advice from a dude with an Amy Grant poster stapled to the ceiling above his bed.

calliecallie

Your move, Michigan.

http://www.southsidejohnny.com/ Jukesgrrl

Let them finish destroying the middle class adults before they start on the kids … they already did the kids … oh.

orygoon

I see people who are going to grow up and become mall shooters.

Esteev

Nah, Obama will take their guns away before that happens.

ProgressiveInga

Charter schools are people, my friend.

corthylio

“I believe we’ve got an economic and a moral imperative to provide school choice and a quality education to every child, every student in America."

Louisiana can't even get their own kids edumacated- do we really trust them to provide a quality education to every child, every student in America?

Ducksworthy

Do you know what a diet of salad greens does to the digestive system of a velociraptor? It isn't pretty.

Biel_ze_Bubba

The digestive system of a velociraptor ain't pretty, no matter what you put into it.

http://wonkette.com/ weejee

Asshat Bobby Gindul did the exorcisms in a previous life earlier in his career, so should we be really surprised by this? The lamestream thinks of him as a moderate, but compared to who? Perhaps fellow Replug Louisianian David Duke?

FraAnima

Of course Jindal is a moderate. Especially compared to that comunistical mooslim nazi Obammers!

HistoriCat

Plus, he has brown skin!

Ruhe

Would John Galt want to build Galt Gulch in Louisiana? I think not. And Jesus? The only way he's headed to Louisiana is angry and with a big stick in his hand.

Pragmatist2

Bobby – Repeat after me: "There is no such thing as a free education."
To focus on education you have to start with teachers. Teachers live in houses and eat food. To get good ones you have to pay them well. You might tell your citizens to move to Massachusetts.

Botlrokit

[…] New Living Word in Ruston, […] has no library. Students spend most of the day watching TVs in bare-bones classrooms. Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition.

All you're doing is teaching your children to absorb their liturgy from a television, and making sows like John Hagee and Benny Hinn more powerful.

corthylio

I think it's smart to bring up a generation of kids who associate religion with mind-numbing tedium…

finallyhappy

this is really scary-that people think that is education and it might get any kind of gov't funding

5. Watch as Alabama actually overtakes your state in # of high school/college graduates.

And does it without increasing their graduation rate…

smellypossum

Education and Louisiana… HAHAHAHAHAHA!

Oooo… boy! Dat's a good un right deah boy!

SorosBot

Hey, the Governor's policies may destroy Louisiana's education system, but see he says that it's supposed to improve education, so we have to take that at face value and accept that he is pro-education, because he says so, evidence be damned; that's how our modern, faith-based media works.

Something tells me that when those schools get repossessed, it won't be with the spirit of critical thinking…

Guppy

Top schools…have just a handful of slots open [to students with vouchers]. The Dunham School in Baton Rouge, for instance, has said it will accept just four voucher students, all kindergartners.

I didn't realize "school choice" meant the schools were the ones making the choices.

Lucidamente1

Needs moar berms.

Boojum

Lernin' is fer pussies.

corthylio

That's how they got those cats to learn the "Meow, meow, meow, meow" song for that cat food commercial.

Beowoof

So the kids are sitting around watching Davy and Goliath DVDs. Spartacus for history, might open some eyes.

BigSkullF*ckingDog

"Educating 99% of the population makes about as much sense as educating the cow that my ribeye steak comes from."

Said some rich guy somewhere, maybe Mitt Romney.

http://facethesuncastnoshadow.wordpress.com/ Mumbletypeg

When the time has come to outsource the learnin' of our kids overseas, we'll be ready.
Uh oh… too late.

HistoriCat

Linky is no good – can you try again?

BoatOfVelociraptors

Hey, I can make a good salad. It just might contain a healthy dose of chicken and bacon to cover up those crunchy vegetables. Also cilantro. Velociraptors hate to devour their prey whole without a tasty garnish.

frrolfe

i has serious confusdz here. i was always led to believe that indian persons idolised education above all else. viz: the number of indians who do seriously well at maths. is gov jindal trying to infiltrate a secret maths baby cadre of asians into LA by moronising the natives? just axing.

cousinitt

Listen, this entire pile of crap likely would not be possible had Katrina not happened. These "people" used a NATURAL DISASTER to foist their privatization plans upon the unsuspecting and traumatized populace that remained in NOLA. The Jindalis now think their system is working because they are all latter-day Horace Manns or John Freaking Deweys. You have no idea how much I hate these people. They think they are working but the demographics have changed and because they are using school models more akin to boot camp than a humane educational environment.

Piyush, Piyush. You are never going to be President. It's just not happening.

sundaytrucker

The loch ness monster may work in the bible' s favor, but clearly big foot proves evolution beyond a shadow of a doubt.

Lizzietish81

So really, by "reform' education, he means teach the children the proscribed rhetoric, keep them ignorant so they grow up to be good little Republicans.

Well we're screwed, we all know how much the Democrats depend on Louisiana!

corthylio

Mary Landrieu libel?

ChrisM2011

" Each lesson consists of an instructional DVD that intersperses Biblical verses with subjects such chemistry or composition."

Provided by Neil Bush's educational software company, I'm sure.

Esteev

I'm confused by this. Does that mean I can have a tenured teaching position?

Redgyal

all this because they decided to let them teach the blahs too

littlebigdaddy

"Last week, Japanese scientists explaced… placed explosive detonators at the bottom of Lake Loch Ness to blow Nessie out of the water. Sir Cort Godfrey of the Nessie Alliance summoned the help of Scotland's local wizards to cast a protective spell over the lake and its local residents and all those who seek for the peaceful existence of our underwater ally." This report would get an A I guess….

MrDorkbutt

It's not like it matters. All of this kids are going to end up in Louisiana's other fantastic privatized institution: Prison.

christianmuslin

See, if that weather lady had been been giving weather forecasts using bible verses then no one would have complained about her hair.

decentcitizen

The important thing is that these "reforms" crippled the teacher's unions. The unfortunate thing is that they are crippling children to accomplish this. This is what they really mean when they say, "think of the children!"

For Jindal, poor and disadvantaged kids should have the same educational opportunities as kids from wealthy families. Fine. There's ample evidence that vouchers don't work, but let's stick to the larger principle. The next question is pretty straightforward: can poor and disadvantaged kids have same access to quality health care as kids from wealthy families? How about the same access to safe and affordable housing? How about nutrition? And transportation? And political influence?

owhatever

Children, you are hopelessly ignorant and good luck with life if you're not big enough to play football.

Biel_ze_Bubba

EDUCATION
You keep using that word, Bobby, but it doesn't mean what you think it means.

http://howtosavetheworld.ca/ BZ1

Jindal is also considered a wonk to people of such low expectations …

ttommyunger

Yup, if by "school choice" you mean segregated education. "Glittering Generalities" like this are right out of Barry Goldwater's first best-seller: "The Conscience of a Conservative". I wonder how long they had to focus-group to come up with "School Choice"?